Infrared scene projectors are devices intended to generate infrared synthesis images that can reveal of great usefulness in a broad variety of applications such as the debugging, testing and tuning of infrared camera devices performed in an indoor laboratory setting. Examples of infrared scene projectors can be provided. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,838,015 to Burdick et al. describes an infrared projector having spaced-apart optical fibers transmitting electromagnetic radiation by total internal reflection to a like number of spaced-apart structures that are each mounted on the opposite end of one of the optical fibers. The structures absorb the transmitted radiation, convert it to heat, and emit radiation in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Alternately, some infrared projectors make use of Bly cells. As can be understood from U.S. Pat. No. 4,299,864 to Bly, a Bly cell typically consists of a visible light absorbing and far infrared radiation emitting membrane enclosed in an evacuated cell, wherein the membrane consists of a thin insulating film coated with an optical black made from gold alloyed with a small amount of nickel, copper or palladium. An example of infrared scene projector that makes use of an array of Bly cells is described in H.-J. Wang et al. “One high performance technology of infrared scene projection”, Proceedings of the SPIE Vol. 9300, paper 930020, (2014).
Although existing infrared scene projectors are satisfactory to a certain degree, there remains room for improvement.